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laila4343's review against another edition
4.0
I can't believe I've never realized until now how similar Carol Shields and Anne Tyler are. Both are masterful writers of the "ordinary" - but their characters are all just a little off, a bit quirky, neurotic, yet lovable. This one starts a bit slow but really picks up steam towards the end as all the plot strands come together beautifully. I'm sad Carol Shields has passed, but I still have her short stories yet to read! And then it's on to re-reading her wonderful novels.
charlie_pearson's review
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
mehitabels's review
3.0
"There are chapters in every life which are seldom read and certainly not outloud"
dcmr's review against another edition
3.0
Carol Shields is a master of character, mood, and story. This is one her earlier works (1977) and you can see how she grew as a writer over the years.
elnechnntt's review against another edition
4.0
An exacting look at the intricacies that often surround family narratives, connections and relationships. The scathing mother/daughter dynamics and the respite found in shared sibling connections was warming and relatable.
Shields touches on many generational observations, and the book might seem at points to be on the verge of becoming too melancholic - but thankfully she navigates us back to the story via some delightful, slightly larger-than-life, characters who were at once intriguing and entertaining.
A wonderful portrayal of reaping back parts of a self, discovering new pieces, and a worthwhile narrative of a woman still attempting to 'make it work'.
Shields touches on many generational observations, and the book might seem at points to be on the verge of becoming too melancholic - but thankfully she navigates us back to the story via some delightful, slightly larger-than-life, characters who were at once intriguing and entertaining.
A wonderful portrayal of reaping back parts of a self, discovering new pieces, and a worthwhile narrative of a woman still attempting to 'make it work'.
betweenbookends's review against another edition
There is such an understated elegance, a balletic grace to Shields writing. Her uncanny ability to dissect the minutiae of everyday life, find magic in the mundane, her observations glittering like finely cut diamonds. Charleen Forrest is a deeply endearing character. A single mother raising a young son, living within her meagre means as an editor for The National Botanical Journal on the west coast of Canada.
She’s forced into a family reunion of sorts when her seventy-year-old mother decides to remarry. Charleen, accompanied by Eugene, the man she has been seeing for two years head to Toronto to attend the wedding. In the background, there’s also the enigmatic Brother Adam, a man of few words with an ardent passion for silence and grass that Charleen’s never met but has been exchanging letters with since his first submission to the Journal. There isn’t much plot, so to speak, and the little of the premise I’ve provided here might seem quite banal. And yet, you couldn’t be further off. It is so compelling, a sequence of seemingly ordinary events that somehow innately capture the intricacies of family and human existence.
Shields’s mastery lies in her exploration of everyday triumphs and pitfalls in a manner that is anything but pedestrian. There’s a quiet acerbic wit to her characterization and examination of relationships that asserts itself seamlessly in the narrative. This might seem oddly specific, but the dialogue is some of the most realistic and best I’ve encountered. I loved this book and it’s not even one of her more celebrated works. I’ve already ordered a matching edition of Small Ceremonies, her first and a companion novel to The Box Garden. I’m keen to get to The Stone Diaries, her Pulitzer Prize winning work, Larry’s Party and others. I just might’ve inadvertently stumbled upon a new favourite author.
4.5/5
She’s forced into a family reunion of sorts when her seventy-year-old mother decides to remarry. Charleen, accompanied by Eugene, the man she has been seeing for two years head to Toronto to attend the wedding. In the background, there’s also the enigmatic Brother Adam, a man of few words with an ardent passion for silence and grass that Charleen’s never met but has been exchanging letters with since his first submission to the Journal. There isn’t much plot, so to speak, and the little of the premise I’ve provided here might seem quite banal. And yet, you couldn’t be further off. It is so compelling, a sequence of seemingly ordinary events that somehow innately capture the intricacies of family and human existence.
Shields’s mastery lies in her exploration of everyday triumphs and pitfalls in a manner that is anything but pedestrian. There’s a quiet acerbic wit to her characterization and examination of relationships that asserts itself seamlessly in the narrative. This might seem oddly specific, but the dialogue is some of the most realistic and best I’ve encountered. I loved this book and it’s not even one of her more celebrated works. I’ve already ordered a matching edition of Small Ceremonies, her first and a companion novel to The Box Garden. I’m keen to get to The Stone Diaries, her Pulitzer Prize winning work, Larry’s Party and others. I just might’ve inadvertently stumbled upon a new favourite author.
4.5/5
aschnake's review
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
bjr2022's review against another edition
4.0
Oh, how I love Carol Shields’s writing: the glorious, delectable descriptions and narrative; dialogue so easy and authentic you don’t even think about the skill behind it; and most of all the knowingness of the author—she understands everybody beneath their facades and leaks out truth through behavior and self-deceptions. How effortlessly she moves a plot forward, slow-leaking facts that tie things together, never overwriting, practicing craft like an Olympian swimmer breathing in time to her strokes, knowing when to hold, breathe out, and inhale so fast that amateurs may never know the practice and artistry that directs every movement. She is, to my taste, sublime.
I only recently discovered Shields when a Goodreads friend reviewed her Pulitzer-winning The Stone Diaries which I read with incredulity that I had never heard of this writer. Maybe I’m just narrowly informed, but perhaps a lot of people are because a huge prize for a book by a female writer was just established under her name. Per the New York Times announcement:
Thank you, Ms. Shields for making me so happy with your writing.
I only recently discovered Shields when a Goodreads friend reviewed her Pulitzer-winning The Stone Diaries which I read with incredulity that I had never heard of this writer. Maybe I’m just narrowly informed, but perhaps a lot of people are because a huge prize for a book by a female writer was just established under her name. Per the New York Times announcement:
Canadian novelist Susan Swan looked into the research about how female writers compared with male ones when it came to literary prizes and coverage. She was shocked by what she found.I hope Carol Shields is smiling in spirit. I hope more readers will discover her, if only because of the money behind this prize. I hope . . . (well, the rest of that’s private).
“I thought it was going to be a happy progress report,” she said in an interview. “Instead it was a bad news day.”
Books written by women were less likely to be reviewed or win the most prominent book awards, Swan said. Some of those numbers have shifted in recent years. VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, a group that tracks the gender imbalance in major publications, reported gains for female writers at several of them in 2018, and writers such as Bernardine Evaristo, Margaret Atwood, Susan Choi and Sarah M. Broom took home several of the highest-profile book awards last year.
But Swan teamed up with a friend who works in book publishing, Janice Zawerbny, in an effort to continue to level the playing field. The result is a new annual prize, the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, which starting in 2022 will award 150,000 Canadian dollars, about $113,000, for a work of fiction published in the previous year by a woman or nonbinary person.
Thank you, Ms. Shields for making me so happy with your writing.
nickelini's review
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0